All The Single Ladies - Exhibitions

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郭城、沈翰联展 Guo Cheng, Shen Han Joint Exhibition

展期 Opening

July 29 - Sept 8 2017 July 29 - Sept 8 2017

介绍 PRESS RELEASE

本次展览即将呈现艺术家郭城，沈翰的作品。两位年轻艺术家均有长期于多元文化背景之中学习生活的经验。郭城在英国皇家艺术学院获得产品设计硕士学位，目前正在荷兰阿姆斯特丹进行BAD Awards奖项 (Bio Art & Design Awards)驻留项目。其作品大多关注主流或新兴科技对社会、文化、伦理等方面的冲击与影响。沈翰近期刚刚完成柏林艺术大学自由艺术专业的学业，并获得大师班学位。他的创作通常强调绘画本身，以“画”这个行为去构建物质与感知的联系。展览文章由李博文撰写，以两位艺术家的作品在观念，媒介，以及创作方式等多方面的迥异暗喻时代分歧下的冲突，矛盾与融合。本展览由Wyoming Project共同呈现，将持续至2017年9月8日。 The exhibition will showcase works by Guo Cheng and Shen Han, two young Chinese artists that have studied and lived in multicultural backgrounds. Guo Cheng is undertaking the BAD Award (Bio Art & Design Awards) residency project in Amsterdam, Netherland after receiving his master degree from the Royal College of Art, UK. His works are concerned with the impacts and influences of mainstream or new technology on the social, cultural and ethical. Shen Han has recently finished his study of Fine Arts at Berlin University of the Arts, with a Meisterklasse degree. His works often focus on painting itself, structuring a connection between the material and perception through the act of ‘painting’. The exhibition article, written by the Li Bowen, deals with the metaphor of the pseudo-genealogical that marks the relationship between the two bodies of works. The exhibition, co-presented by Wyoming Project, will continue until September 8, 2017.

老化是一个可怕的事情,尤其是当老化的是女性的时候,但是在某些特定的时刻,我们都要面对“不同的时间”这个问题:也就是说,当一个人变成自己的父亲或是儿子的时候。尽管这听起来滑稽,这困境(或许,仅对于那些仍然不合时宜——而不合时宜就是我们在此最大的主题——地纠结于过时的、存在式问题的人来说,这是一个困境。无论如何,我们相信,对于某些人来说,我们在此的讨论是无聊的、幼稚的, 是不值一提的。不都是这样的吗?)的确就是这样一种生命的展开:这生命在时间的经济中不间断并不可逆地丢失,另在某些时刻(尽管我们清楚这种情况并不多见)赢了一些回来。老化,抗老化,作为艺术的纯粹表面性(以及,顺带一提,宇宙和化妆品在词源学上的联系)。

我们在此孤立地看 E. O. Plauen 不朽的《父与子》中两人愉快地荡秋千的景象。这景象自然地让我们想起Jean-Honoré Fragonard 的荡秋千的女性,而这两者的距离已经能够让我们开始关于时间性的讨论:一个是现代的,反纳粹或称反法西斯的(漫画的这一特点或许并不是显性的。无论如何,过去的漫画应当还是面对孩子们展开的。重要的是——尽管这并不必要——这漫画展示了德国父亲在亲子关系中也并没有多先进。作为再现的代表制度,作为代表制度的再现,艺术和文化在不同的现实中互相哺育),以一种轻松的方式探索了家庭或谱系关系,作者本人像一个英雄一般自杀,也是一个可贵的朋友(在 Plauen 于狱中自杀前,他是与他的长期合租伙伴兼好友 Erich Knauf 一同被捕的。一同死去,或,比一同死去更好:我比你更早离去——这也让我们想起了一个同样肃穆的文本,这文本像钟摆一样在我们于此的背景之中规律地摇摆);另一个则是洛可可式的,过分地丰富、不受节制、轻浮的,充满纯粹情欲快感,甚至是恋物癖式的。其次,在此可见不合时宜事物涌现的可能,就像是那些糟糕的电影里会有的一样。举例来说(因为这电影太棒了),《冰雪奇缘》中有雪人雪宝愉快而让人“不寒而栗”的唱段 In Summer,这是迪士尼有史以来最极致的一次“历史时间错乱”场景。雪宝向往夏天,向往自己最大的悲剧,而这和我们的故事有直接的关系(这“不合时宜”在在《冰雪奇缘》中一直不是一个显性的主题,但我们几乎可以声称赋予这个动画电影以迷人魔法的正是这种“不合时宜”。不合时宜,与自己的时间不符,是核心,是关键)。

那么，以一种类似荡秋千的运动，以一种轻柔、愉快、无重要意义、不规律的摇摆——不规律确保了我们在此讨论的这种不确定性摇摆运动与其他摇摆运动迥异（我们在此提出的不可能性，即是这种不规律的摇摆本身：跛脚的男人，脱节了的时间）——我们来到两种艺术实践面前。初步印象如下（因为两者的面目尚未清晰）：其中一个可以被描述成是传统的、表现式的、个人的、在前的、掌控全局的（因为这是更高的——但是这的确是更高的吗？谁能够掌控全局？尼采：“It is here: my forty-fifth year, theday of the year when I am forty-five years old, something like the midday oflife. The noon of life, even midlife crisis”——谁能掌控全局？佝偻着的，还是直立的，年老的，还是年轻的？还是更年长的，仅仅因为他们先至？无论如何，我们感兴趣的是：“何者先至”的政治。顺带一提，我们也要牢记，尼采这样的一段话被一本关于“耳朵”的书所描述，而不是“眼睛”。），正在死去或正在被复兴；另一个是新的、新鲜的、克制、冷静（冷静，因为这作品直接与身体的分离有关——死亡和温度）、以一种“后”的方式与“人类”生命有关（这是不是我们今天唯一剩下的、能与“人类”产生联系的方式？一张绘画为何不是和“人类”有关的）、与克隆（甚至有丝分裂）有关，也是一种（艺术家的）天主教或反天主教的最新形式，是直接与来自未来的踪迹有关的物件？

沈翰的绘画中的不可辨认的踪迹架构了一种灵柩的的理念（除此之外也似乎积极地指向一种碎片化了的整体，这整体以逃离自身形式为目标进行努力）。我当然想到Dana Schutz近期广受争议的Open Casket：这件作品被掩盖了的一个特点是，这绘画最为抽象的时刻，便是其最为写实的时刻。这是为了不能看的眼睛而准备的，这是为了不为了看清而看的眼睛而准备的。就像在今天我们不需要仔细地去研究Emmett Till的脸的变形就可以确定这一定是他一样，扭曲或抽象一定是与这张可怜的脸庞相匹配的。只有在这脸是不可辨认的时候，这脸才是可以辨认的，才与一个确切的、被明明了的人有关。这个例子有助我们理解沈翰的绘画，有助让确切的世界进入到这些绘画之中去。我在此声称，这些画作架构了一种灵柩，一种特定形式的葬礼。沈翰绘画的形式特点让人想起一种堆肥——就像David Joselit在讨论Pierre Hyughe创作时提到的那一种——以一种升华、整体化（当然，这种整体化也是一种去整体化过程）为目的进行的累积、堆积；然而，矛盾的是，这种绘画创作朝向一种反-堆肥（反作为碎片化的整体化）的方向发展，否认更整体、宏大的存在（而就算这种整体是存在的，也不一定是更“清晰可辨”的）。
The King takes all my time; I give the rest to Saint-Cyr, to whom I would like to give all.
- Madame de Maintenon

Ageing is a terrible thing, especially when it happens to women folks, but in a certain moment, all of us have to face the problem of different times: that is, when one becomes one’s own father or son. Although seemingly ludicrous, the really horrifying conundrum here is (but maybe only is horrifying to those who are still concerned with outdated problems that are existential in nature. After all, we believe also that to some, the discussion here is simply mundane, trivial, and casually dismissible. Ain’t it all?) exactly the opening of an everyday reality of at once irretrievably losing one’s self in the economy of time and, when it sometimes happens (though we do admit that it is rare), the possibility of winning some back. Ageing and anti-ageing products, pure superficiality as art (and the lesson of the cosmos as at least philologically related to the cosmetics).

E. O. Plauen's immortal Father and Son ’s joyful swing abstracted and isolated here naturally reminds us of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Swing, the masterpiece that we see in the Wallace Collection in London. What interests us here is certainly first of all the distance between the two: one being Modern, anti-Nazi in nature (maybe in a fashion that is not overwhelmingly manifest. After all, comics back then were still chiefly for the kids I guess. It was important - albeit perhaps unnecessary - to demonstrate that German fathers were not too much more advanced in their parenting. Representation as representation, art and culture as fed by and feeding into different everyday realities), pertaining light-heartedly to the familial and genealogical, the author himself being heroically suicidal, and even formidable in friendship (before he committed suicide in jail, Plauen was arrested with his longtime friend Erich Knauf. Dying together, or better, me dying before you do - that reminds us of a certain no less solemn text, that is only pertinent here, oscillating like a pendulum in the background); the other being Rococo, excessively rich, unrestrained, frivolous, full of its pure sexual and erotic joy, and even fetishistic. And secondly, the possibility of the emergence of things anachronistic, as in bad films. The amusing Frozen, for instance, has offered an unprecedented scene of full and complete anachronism when snowman Olaf sings the cheerful yet nerve-racking song of In Summer. The fact that the snowman desires his worst fate, is directly relevant to our story here (of course, a certain recent Han Han film also speaks of this, and maybe in a more pertinent way, but we really do not care for mentioning it at length. How the structure of the anachronistic is hidden but is omnipresent in the whole of the Frozen - one may even want to venture and argue that that is its essence, its truth - makes it a better film, amusing and profound).
In a movement that resembles this swing, then, in a movement of oscillation, as gentle, cheerful,insubstantial and irregular as it is - irregularity being the rare quality that differentiates this uncertain oscillation with others (and an oscillation that is irregular is already the impossibility that we are proposing here: a man that is crippled, or a time that is out of joint) - we are brought to two different bodies of works. Most tentatively, for both resemble strangers that can not be quite identified as of yet: one is to be described as traditional, expressive, personal, preceding, overseeing (for the simple fact that it is taller - or is it? Which one overseas? Nietzsche: “It is here: my forty-fifth year, the day of the year when I am forty-five years old, something like the midday of life. The noon of life, even midlife crisis” - who in fact overseas? the stooping or the straight-standing, the old or the young? Or, for that matter, the older, the merely preceding? For we are concerned after all with the politics of the one[-comes]-before-another. Incidentally, we are also to keep in mind that this quote was in fact found in a book that apparently speaks of “ears”, instead of “eyes”.), dying and/or reviving; the other new, novel, restrained, cold (exactly because it involves taking away from the body, departing with a part of me), human in a so-called “post-“ fashion (can we only come today to a consideration of the human in this fashion though? How is a painting not human?), haptic, even forensic, speaking directly of a post-life,afterlife, creation of (animate or inanimate) life, cloning or even mitosis,yet another form of (artist’s) Catholicism or anti-Catholicism, objects that speak directly and boldly with traces that pertain to the future, to a certain posteriority.

The unidentifiable traces often Han’s paintings structures, among other things (such as, clearly, the whole of a fragmented being that tends to escape its own form), the idea of a coffin. Obviously I have in mind the recent Open Casket by Diana Schutz that has brought to itself overwhelming controversies: revealed by the work but also sometimes ignored is the fact that where the painting becomes apparently abstract, it is at its most representational. It is present in an eye that does not see, or one that does not in effect rely on seeing. Just as Emmett Till’s face does not call for close examinations, and is considered a face that is immediately recognizable, the distortion or abstraction is by definition truthful to it. Only when it is unidentifiable, it is specifically identifiable. This fairly recent example helps to clear the way for Shen Han’s paintings, into a worldly place. And I contend that what is structured is the idea of a coffin, of a certain form of burial. The formal aspect of Shen Han’s paintings reminds one of the idea of compost - such as that proposed by David Joselit when he speaks of Pierre Hyughe’spractise - the accumulation of tangible and physical matters, for a total (if not grand) sub-limation that brings all into one; however, paradoxically, it assumes also a form that deliberately counters compost, that resists resolutely the idea of being assimilated into a greater being (that is no more recognisable).

另一方面，郭城的法医式研究内化了或缩减了人的踪迹至人本身。一般线性逻辑的“艺术家（通过外化及从自我中分离）在己前到达自身”在此不适用；正正是在艺术家的确在真实地与自我相剥离并将这些剥离的踪迹存档之时，反向逻辑成为可能。我们在近期的一次讨论中曾经初步讨论过这件事：在德里达“之后”，艺术家的身份确认是在“身后”确认的，确认的证据是那些在艺术家“生前”到达艺术家自身的踪迹。德里达关于另一事的描述（因为我们赶时间）：“It is as if a lidless eye had opened at the tip of the fingers, as if one eye too many had just grown right next to the nail, a single eye, the eye of a cyclops or one-eyed man. This eye guides the tracing or outline [tracé]; it is a miner’s lamp at the point of writing, a curious and vigilant substitute, the prosthesis of a seer who is himself invisible.”顺带一提，我们几乎可以说这是一次仪式，新生命及庞大数量的眼都旨在召唤一个遥远、闻所未闻但必定是可怕的古神。

面向这两者，或，更重要的是，望着这两者面对彼此，我们首先想象一种独特于某种特殊中国群体的文化，这种文化中的虚拟父子关系，以及德里达阅读《共产主义宣言》及《哈姆雷特》这件事。首先，一种父子关系：我们从来明白的是，谱系或家族关系不能够以一种不合时宜的方式被打乱：也就是说，无论在何种情况下，两者都不能互换领带或鞋。我们在此想要提出的是一种奇怪的自然-文化结合，几种不同的“自然”被写入同一个“文本”中：一言以蔽之，这就是让这种父子关系的可能性的条件。父亲需要被当做父亲来尊重，而儿子要被当做——你知道的。我们见过持续的、不断繁殖的血源——能够让儿子成为了父亲、确保了血源的稳定的，正是这件事的不可否定性。换句话说，完整的、封闭的、同时又是开放的复杂谱系/家庭关系，或是父子的主体间性关系的陈词滥调确保了我们不能想象父子关系“非正常”的逆反运动：儿子不会成为自己父亲的父亲，反之亦然。

但是我们要将这个与触觉及视觉有关的——也就是与不可触性及不可见性有关的——展览视作一个严肃地考虑这个可能性的时刻。我，作为一个对你来说无比陌生的男人——将要与你产生一种家庭关系，将要成为你的父亲。或者，如果我们不仅要想象获利，也要为了公平起见想象亏损（这是一种如此朴素的经济学）我们也要为你将成为我的父亲做好准备。一种单向的、由血的输送所确保的关系在此要被扰乱；在一两种古老中国传统戏剧形式中流行的所谓伦理哏，一种旨在通过诡辩让你承认“我是你父亲”并从你（的时间或历史）中获利的无聊游戏，是我们感兴趣的。在两个角色之间的，仍然是一种摇摆，一种对于“何者先至”事实性知识不敬的、亵渎性的尝试，无论先至的就是是painting，还是（3D或im-）printing。在这个运动中，一个人并不会轻易地成为另一个什么，除非“另一个”就被想象成是——你知道的。

（和每一次一样，）在《马克思的魂灵》中，德里达讨论了哈姆雷特和他死去的父亲的关系。德里达声称，重要的是，父亲是以魂灵的形象出现的（同样重要的是这魂灵必将回返：“The revenant is going to come”）。一个死去的男性，或许多死去的男性的魂灵（决绝地非序列式的魂灵清单——非序列性就是我们的主题——包括达芬奇的魂灵，莱布尼茨的魂灵、康德的、黑格尔的和马克思的魂灵），这些魂灵是被一种“面罩效应”所包裹：那东西（王的魂灵）“不是可见的”。他是哈姆雷特死去的父亲，不是因为哈姆雷特确认了他的身份，并主动接受了这个亡魂归来的事实；以一种类似于无稽的伦理哏的方式，“声称“我是你的父亲的魂灵”的东西，我们只能听信他。”于是乎，马上——因为我们必须马上脱离德里达的阅读——我们早已准备好去声称，与“不可触性”相连的“不可见性”即是在此次展览中运作的机制。我们不仅在处理一种双重“面罩效应”（因为双方是“轮流地”成为“先至之人”的）；我们也在处理一种无交流性，不可译性，而这些，这些是触摸。

最后，活着的女性的逻辑。她睁大了双眼，确认着、监督着血源（血源的多次出现当然是与某种Lovecraft有关的）“…她什么都不知道。”我不想去描述她，但是我们最起码可以看到一双脚，一个屁股。
Guo Cheng’s forensic study, on the other hand, internalizes or reduces the traces of a man into the man himself. Instead of following the ordinary logic of an artist arriving before himself (by externalizing and departing from himself), exactly when the artist is deliberately tearing pieces of himself from himself and archiving these, can the reversed trajectory be rendered conceivable at all. Not unlike a recent writing of ours has it most tentatively (but also, I concede, rather light-heartedly), the identity of the artist solely depends posthumously on the traces that, after Derrida, comes before the artist. Derrida, but on a different note (as we are in fact in a hurry): “It is as if a lidless eye had opened at the tip of the fingers, as if one eye too many had just grown right next to the nail, a single eye, the eye of a cyclops or one-eyed man. This eye guides the tracing or outline [tracé]; it is a miner’s lamp at the point of writing, a curious and vigilant substitute, the prosthesis is a seer who is himself invisible.” In passing, we can even say we are witnessing here a ritual, creating a novel but perhaps deadly simulacra of one’s self and numerous eyes, anticipating - or precipitating need - a certain Cthulhu God.

Facing these two, and more importantly, the two facing each other, we are to think first of all of a certain logic of the father and son that is specific to merely a certain community of Chinese, and perhaps, interestingly, a certain Derridean reading of The Communist Manifesto, along with the Hamlet. First, a certain logic of the father and son relationship: it is only clear to us all that the genealogical and the familial thread is not to be messed up in a fashion that is anachronistic: that is, under no circumstances whatsoever, are the two to exchange shoes and ties. We are here evoking the strange combination of the natural and the cultural, laws of vastly different nature written into one book - in short, what makes a relationship as such possible at all. A father is to be respected as a father, and a son is to be taken care of as, well you know the rest. We have seen the ongoing,ever-reproducing lineage - the son becoming the father, and promising to us and to all the stability of this lineage, is exactly the impossibility of fucking this up. In other words, impossible is the reversal, when taken into account is the full relationship as provisionally closed and opened at once, or the cliche of intersubjectivity of the father and the son: a son will not become his own father's father, or a father his son’s son.

But we are to take this exhibition of two male artists’ works that are at one haptic, optic - that is, intangible and invisible - as one of the opportunities to touch upon and speak of with all seriousness the conditions of possibility of exactly that: me - another man that is for the time being most strange and unfamiliar to you - becoming your father, to be related to you genealogically. Or, if we have to for now also think about not only winning, gaining but also losing - that is, to complete the picture by involving a certain raw, naive economy - we will also have to be prepared for you becoming mine. Not only is a relationship initiated, maintained and guaranteed absolutely by an one-way donation of blood that is here and only here subject to reversal; the so called genealogical jokes, abundantly available in one or two traditional Chinese form of comedic theatre art of try to gain from you (time), by cunningly attempting to make you admit that “you are my father” is also of interest here. As we were saying, proposed between the two distinct roles, two responsibilities is a swing, an oscillation, a possibility of disrespecting and carrying on regardless of the factual knowledge of one(-comes)-before-another,paintings and (3D or im-)printings. In this movement, one does not become another, unless the another can be also positively and resolutely imagined as - well you know the rest.

(As always) in his Spectres of Marx, Jacques Derrida speaks of the relationship between Hamlet and his spectral king father. What is important, says Derrida, is the fact that the father remains a spectral figure (and just as important is the injunction of his return: “The revenant is going to come”). A dead male, then, or precisely generations of spirits (the resolutely non-sequential - and non-sequentiality is exactly our topic here, if you still have to be reminded now that we are arriving at an end- list of spirits includes Lionardo, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx); and more precisely one that is marked by a certain visor effect: the Thing (the spectral king) that “is nothing visible”.He is Hamlet’s deceased father, not because Hamlet identifies him and actively accept the fact that the deceased is suddenly coming back, to haunt; in a fashion that is not dissimilar to the ridiculous tradition carried almost only by a rather small community of Chinese, then, “the one who says ‘I am thy fathers Spirit can only be taken at his word.” And immediately, as we are almost too easily, casually and prematurely breaking away from Derrida’sreading, we are always already ready to propose here that, at work is is,again, invisibility, that has to be considered (in our very specific and even unique case here, at least) in relation to intangibility. Not only are we dealing with a double visor effect, because complicating the picture is the condition that one is to become another father, one(-comes)-before-another, in turn; but also we are dealing with incommunicability, untranslatability, that is marked chief and foremost by being haptic in nature here.

And the logic of the living feminine, as the one guaranteeing, watching the bloodline (here, of course, we are referring to the recent classic, which heavily depends itself upon a whole lot of Lovecraft) “…knows nothing about it.” I do not care about describing her, but one can at least identify those feet and that ass.